I have to admit to being a Windoze devotee (shame on me), all those years I was a loyal (and die hard) Commodore Amiga user knowing that 'Workench 3.1' was a far superior system to Windoze 95 and Amiga would take over the world......and I caved in to Bill Gates....doh!

I suppose Windows is just a comfortable environment for me, I use Knoppix now again for Live boots but never use Linux in any other way, I am willing to learn but I need to set aside time, when I find some.

As XP was most current until a week later when Vista arrived I decided to go along with that, besides it has to be the most supported OS platform ever.   I was surprised when I first installed it that it actually ran on 64mb, Ok not blistering fast and perhaps impractical but nevertheless I was half impressed.

My idea was to run the picture frame only through the day and hence it would not run at night time.  It would have been a bore to switch it on every morning and turn it off at bedtime and frankly I could see it not getting used so I asked my friend (Google) and low and behold there are quite a few programs that automatically turn off (well hibernate or standby) your laptop and restart them at any time you wish, I tried a few demos and some shareware ones before deciding on WakeUpOnStandby which suited my needs down to the ground and is FREE.  MY DPF is currently programmed to start at 7.30am and turn off (standby)at 10.30pm everyday.  An excellent FREE program that I recommend strongly.

Next I needed a Slideshow program, this was quite difficult as there are a lot out there.  I spent considerable time on looking for a program that achieved what I wanted and then after reading someone else's DPF guide (sorry can't remember whose) I turned to gPhotshow a freeware product.  It uses the Windows Screensaver feature to show your pictures, but allows numerous 'extra' settings.....time delay, transitions, size adjustment, sounds, etc.  The beauty of this program is that you can put it in the Windows start-up folder so that it starts straight away after boot.  If you then interrupt it to do something else on the DPF it restarts after 60 seconds on non-activity....brilliant!

And so that is my software setup for running my DPF as a picture show.

However as I mentioned earlier I wanted to do more, and to do this I needed to be able to 'control' the DPF.  I asked my friend again about wireless keyboards with integral mice or trackballs.  Surprisingly there aren't all that many, but I found one that suited my needs down to the ground! And this is my special item I mentioned earlier......Any of these, I bought a 9116 and it is excellent, the joystick at the top right moves the mouse pointer around and has two mouse buttons at the top left, when the kids (or I) want to have a bash on a game pressing Fn and F11 turns it into a joystick and its all wireless.  The only downside with this keyboard is its range, the controller is tucked neatly away inside the DPF but I have to stay within a couple of metres to get good use from it, disappointing that but still a tremendous item.

So to go with the keyboard I installed Firefox which means we now have a Broadband 'Wireless Internet Station' hanging on the wall to use at anytime by simply pressing a key on the keyboard to suspend the slideshow and then launching Firefox, for extra fun I installed MAME an arcade game machine emulator for when I have more time than I know what to do with....which is never!

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